by Fox, Logan
“You shut up and listen,” he said, seeming to ignore Finn’s frown when he turned to take a seat beside her.
Cora opened her mouth, and then shut it again.
Finn cleared his throat again, then glanced at Angel. He was still standing close to the doorway, another sweet in his fingers. When he saw Finn looking at him, he offered the bag of sweets again.
“No!” Finn said. “Get out.”
“Finn,” Cora began.
“I go,” Angel said, sounding relieved. The motel door closed softly behind him.
“You don’t have to be so rude,” Cora said, and then cast Lars a quick glance as if expecting a reprimand for speaking.
Finn sat forward, his elbows on his knees, and laced his fingers together. “Things have gotten fucked up.”
Cora watched him, her gaze flickering across his eyes. Then she nodded.
“Worst case scenario,” Lars said, “both Martin and West still want to get their hands on you.”
She opened her mouth, and then shut it again. Ducked her head. Began twisting her hands in her lap.
“I don’t think Martin’s necessarily out to hurt you, but he seems to have his own fucking agenda,” Finn said.
“And don’t forget he seemed perfectly happy with using Milo as target practice,” Lars added. “That strike you as the action of a sane person?”
“Maybe he thought you were trying to—”
Lars flicked her ear with his fingers. She yelped and turned an astonished face to him. “What did I say about speaking?”
Her mouth fell open, and she held out a hand, staring at Finn as if asking him to intervene.
“Just let us talk, Cora.”
She closed her mouth, but reluctantly, and tightly crossed her arms over her chest.
“We’re taking you away from here. We need to regroup. Change identities. Whatever we can to get off their radars,” Finn said.
Cora looked as if she was bursting to speak, but held her tongue.
“However…” Lars looked across at him, and his mouth twisted reluctantly. “There’s something you should know first.”
Cora glanced up at that, turning worried eyes first to Lars, and then Finn.
“Obviously we can’t confirm it, not stuck out here, but…” Finn paused, glancing toward the motel door before looking back at her. “Javier said you were his goddaughter.”
Cora sat up at this, her face growing slack. The swelling had down a little during the night, but the left side of her face still looked a bit puffy and tender. The scratches were starting to scab. Hopefully they wouldn’t leave scars.
Although she’d look smoking hot with a pale scar over her cheek.
Finn pushed away the random thought and shrugged. “Until you’re twenty-one, that could mean Javier’s your legal guardian.”
“Unless you emancipate,” Lars said.
“Which you’d probably have to do in Mexico, since you’re an illegal,” Finn said.
“I’m his goddaughter?” Cora whispered.
Lars didn’t flick her ear this time. Perhaps he thought the announcement deserved a little back-and-forth.
“That’s what he said.” Finn shrugged. “He could be lying, of course…”
“I…” Cora ducked her head. “It’s possible. My father thought the world of him. I guess, if something happened to Papá, there wouldn’t be anyone else to—” She cut off, and blinked back tears.
Finn scratched the back of his neck, and glanced across at Lars. “Then…there’s something else you should probably know.”
Cora’s face went pale. Two spots of color popped onto her cheeks.
God, why was this so difficult? And Lars seemed to be waiting him out instead of jumping in. Guess he had it coming. He’d kept Lars out of this whole thing for days; the man had every right to be upset.
“Before I met you, Lars and I—”
“You were a couple?” Cora put in, her voice quavering.
Finn deflated. “I wouldn’t say—”
“Jesus,” Lars said dryly. “We fucked a few times, that’s it.”
When he looked across at Lars, the man wasn’t making eye contact with him.
Cora turned round eyes to Lars, and then began fidgeting with the collar of her shirt. “Oh,” she said, and then swallowed visibly.
“That’s it?” Lars said, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “No questions? You don’t want to know what we got up to—”
“Lars,” Finn said gruffly. “This isn’t the time.”
“Yeah?” Lars shot him a quick look, and then his eyes darted to the closed motel room door. “Think Angel’s going to bust in on us? ‘Cos I was thinking we could show her what we—”
“Enough,” Finn said hastily, drawing Cora’s eyes back to him.
He didn’t know what he’d expected. Revulsion, astonishment, anger. Instead, something else brimmed from those bright golden eyes, a kind of hedonistic curiosity.
It was probably his imagination. After what she’d seen him do to that guy yesterday, there was no way she could ever look at him like a woman looked at a man. Not without seeing the violence teeming just beneath the surface. How could you be vulnerable in the face of something so destructive?
“Look, I can’t see into the future. All I know is, we got to get you somewhere far away from the cartels,” Finn said, loud enough to drown out the thoughts in his head. “I was thinking—”
“Ah, fuck you Finn,” Lars said. “You seriously not going to be honest with her?”
Finn closed his mouth and threw Lars a meaningful glare which the man completely failed to see. Lars tucked a curl of Cora’s hair behind her ear. She shivered, and dropped her gaze into her lap.
“What he’s too shit scared to say, is that he’s fallen hard for you.”
“Lars,” Finn growled, but the man flat-out ignored him.
“You see, bunny, I know Finn. We’ve been friends for years. I know when some chick comes along and uses his heart for a punching bag.”
Cora glared up at Lars, heat in her eyes and her mouth pulling into a line. “What?” she demanded.
“It probably wasn’t intentional,” Lars said soothingly, still playing with a curl of her hair, “But you did it nonetheless.” He gave Finn a quick glance. “So it’s not good for us to keep hanging around you. But we’ll make sure you don’t ever have to worry about the cartels again.”
“And then?” Cora asked in a shaking voice. “Then I’ll never see you again?”
Finn rose. “That’s the plan,” he said quietly.
Cora turned to Lars, as if seeking some kind of explanation. Lars shrugged and said simply, “We’ll all be better off without each other.”
His words stung Finn like a slap through the face, but he made himself turn away so he could tell Angel to come back inside. They’d had their talk. It was time to gear up and get themselves to safety. And once Cora was—
As he opened the motel door, there came the sound of a gun cocking. Finn froze, and moved only his eyes to the right. Beside him, stood a stranger and, a little behind him, Angel. The newcomer held a Smith & Wesson magnum in his hands, steady as a statue, and trained it on Finn’s chest.
Larger target. Better chance at getting a hit.
“Who the fuck are you?” Finn grated, loud enough that Lars had to have heard him through the open door. True enough, he heard frantic movement from inside the motel room.
The guy holding the magnum gave him an unpleasant smile, eyes flickering for a second to the room as if he’d heard those furtive noises too. “Tell them not to bother. There’s no way out ‘cept through this door.” A slight dip of the revolver took in the doorway Finn crowded. “And ‘sides,” the man said with a smug little sneer. “Backup’ll be here any second now.”
Finn’s eyes flickered to the grimy sign heralding the motel’s name.
The Elegance.
He’d known it was no fucking coincidence. This motel was probably one of Zachary West�
��s fronts. And this guy must have been working the counter. Maybe he’d seen one of them who matched a description—
But then Finn’s eyes darted to Angel. The young man held his chin up, eyes blazing with defiance.
“What have you done?” Finn whispered hoarsely.
68
An exorcism
The SUVs arrived less than a minute later. The motel manager shooed Finn to the side, calling for Lars and Cora to come out with their hands up. Finn had hoped Lars would pull some magic trick out of his ass to make him and Cora disappear, but it turned out the motel guy had been right; the only way out was through the front door.
Lars came out first, hands up. Finn saw the pistol tucked into the back of his belt, but it would be suicidal for Lars to try and use it. Especially when those five SUVs came screaming into the motel’s parking lot. A few doors down, the man who’d been sleeping off his hangover came out, looking bleary-eyed.
He didn’t seem to notice anything unusual at first, until he happened to look up while trying to get his car door open. Then his mouth fell open and he ran back inside his room, slamming the door shut.
Would he call the cops? Would that even fucking help?
“You goddamn piece of shit,” Lars said to Angel.
“Hey, back up,” the manager said, pointing his magnum at Lars’s gut. Lars grimaced at the man and then glared at Angel. “It was you, wasn’t it? I knew we couldn’t—”
The manager slammed the butt of his pistol into Lars’s face. Lars twisted a little, touching the cut above his eye, and straightened again. “You hit like a fucking girl,” he spat.
“Where’s she?” the manager asked.
A troop of ten armed men climbed out of the SUVs and formed a rough circle. Another two disappeared off to the side, no doubt circling around in case Cora could somehow squeeze through the bathroom window.
Could she?
Finn’s heart stalled. But no, he’d seen that window. It was little more than a gap for air to flow through.
No place to run.
No place to hide.
“I fetch,” Angel said, and sidled into the room before the manager could say anything.
Jesus, the guy had no shame. They could have left Angel there in Javier’s compound. But no, Cora’d had a fucking vision or something. More likely, she’d still been under the influence of whatever cocktail Javier had fed her.
Angel came limping out, holding Cora by the arm. She didn’t fight him, and almost limped as badly as he did. But when she saw the SUVs and the pair of armed men drawing closer, she stiffened.
Perhaps remembering how it had felt to get kicked in the jaw.
One of the men stopped a few yards away. They all wore shades and dark clothing, like some kind of mob uniform. Did none of these fucking cartels have the time to pick out colors or something? They all seemed to dress the same. Must be hard, figuring out who was on your team when there was a cartel war.
Then Finn stared harder. To the side, a third man was walking closer. Calmly, but with intent. And heading straight for Cora.
“Hey,” Finn said, holding out a hand. “You’re going to have to get through me first if you—”
But the man ignored him. He walked right up to Angel, drew a Five-seveN pistol from its holster, and shot Angel in the face.
Cora let out a short, sharp scream. Both he and Lars had flinched. He expected her to run to Angel’s side, perhaps cradle the young man’s dead body. But she stared at him as he rammed into the motel room’s wall, and then watched his body slide down. There was a spray of blood and brain matter on the wall behind him, a streak following his body to the ground.
But his eyes were blank now. No more hatred. No more doubt. Whatever demons had infested his mind, they’d finally been exorcised.
Cora stepped forward, ducking her head a little so she could see under the shooter’s black cap.
“Miguel?” Cora said. “What—”
And then the hatred writ so plain on that face melted away. A cheery, lopsided smile replaced it. “Princesa!”
Finn recognized him too now.
Miguel waved a hand to the SUVs. “Come, come,” he said, voice oozing charm. “Tío is waiting for you.”
* * *
This time, when they arrived at Javier’s compound, the man was waiting at the steps of his villa to greet them. Along with several of his guards, all armed, all looking twitchy. Cora sat in the car until the sicario who’d come to sit beside her prompted her out with the muzzle of his assault rifle. She’d had to travel alone with him and Miguel, and a third man driving shotgun. Finn and Lars had each been bundled into separate cars.
Looked like Javier wasn’t taking any more chances with them.
“Elle,” Javier called, spreading his arms wide.
A wave of deja-vu flowed over her, thick and nauseating. It was like the first day she’d arrived here, if she didn’t take into account all her injuries.
If Javier was put out by the sight of her, he didn’t show it. The rifle in the small of her back forced her forward and up the steps, until she was in reach of Javier.
He scooped her up and squeezed her so tight, tears stung her eyes from the pain that brought her bruises. Then he leaned back, took her chin in a hand and turned her face.
“This is what happens when you don’t listen, Elle,” Javier murmured. He still wore a smile, but it had set in place like concrete. And that smile didn’t touch his eyes, those black voids where slimy things coiled around each other. “Are you going to be a good girl from now on?”
If her mouth hadn’t been dry as desert sand, she’d have spat in his face. “Fuck you,” she said.
Javier slapped her. The pain was twice what it should have been, since one of his large ruby rings landed right where Zachary’s boot had struck her face. She gasped, reeling, and would have fallen if the man behind her didn’t catch her. She caught a whiff of sweat and gun oil before he pushed her upright again.
“Now,” Javier said, dusting his hand against his linen suit like she’d made him dirty. “I’m sure you’ve had quite the ordeal. Let’s go inside where my doctor can take a look at you.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Cora jerked her arm free.
Javier had half-turned to go inside the villa, and twisted back with a mock frown on his face. That wide, suggestive mouth curled up again. “No?”
His accent was thick today but, as if to compensate, he enunciated every word perfectly. “Come on, Elle. You will just tire yourself out, fighting me like this.”
She opened her mouth but, before she could get a word out, Javier clicked his fingers. There was a muffled yell somewhere behind her. She spun, and darted to the side so she could see past the guy standing behind her.
One of the men in the convoy had dragged Lars from the car and thrown him to the ground. His boot was on Lars’s face and, as she watched, he ground Lars’s face into the gravel. Lars’s teeth flashed white in the sun as he gritted them, but then a reluctant cry left him. They’d tied his hands and feet so, struggle as he might, there was no way he could get up to defend himself.
Cora surged forward, but Javier’s sicario caught her effortlessly.
“No! Stop!” Her voice seemed so pitiful, as if the villa’s gaping entrance swallowed it even though she faced away. A merciless wind dragged fingers through her hair and ruffled her clothes. “Por favor, Tío!”
A warm hand touched the back of her neck. “Come inside, Elle. It’s time we spoke.”
She resisted that hand, but only for a second. The man torturing Lars drew back his boot and kicked him in the ribs. Lars curled up silently, but the pain on his face was visible even from where she stood.
Blinking back tears of frustration, Cora took an unsteady step back. Then another. Another.
Letting Javier lead her inside the villa until Lars, the SUVs, and the brutal sun had all been blotted out.
69
The puppet master
Finn cam
e to with a pounding head, and arms and legs too heavy to move. Until he realized his arms were bound behind his back, and his feet to a chair. When he could make out enough from his surroundings, he saw Lars was sitting a few feet away, his head lolling on his chest.
Both their mouths were bound. Finn tried yelling through the duct tape gag, but the whine it produced had no chance of waking Lars.
Boots approached. That must have been what woke him. Finn scanned the gloom, but couldn’t see where they came from. It looked like they were in a warehouse. Crates stood stacked against one wall, massive barrels along the other. Greasy tracks beneath him indicated this might have been a delivery point at some time, or perhaps even recently. Until whatever had been in here had been removed to make way for him and Lars.
Although it still had to be light outside—he couldn’t have been unconscious longer than an hour—the only illumination in this place came from a bare bulb against a wall close to the suggestion of a doorway.
The boots had been coming from outside. Metal screeched against metal as the warehouse doors were hauled open. A pair of men came inside, their rifles more an afterthought, and a now familiar silhouette appeared in the midday glare.
So he’d been out for more than just an hour or two. Fuck.
Javier Martin, in all his white-linened glory. Immaculate as always. Thick, long hair perfectly styled. Designer shades, and designer probably everything else, even down to what was undoubtedly a pair of pristine name-brand briefs.
Which probably encased a dick the size of a peanut. Men with small dicks always felt the need to overcompensate, and if this villa wasn’t fucking overcompensating for something…
“Good afternoon, Mr. Finn,” Javier said.
Finn didn’t try to respond. It would have been useless through the gag, and maybe him remaining silent would piss Javier off so much that he would remove it.
The screech of the doors opening had woken Lars. Finn watched from the corner of his eyes as he lifted his head and stared groggily over at Javier as the man approached.